Putting On the Ritz
by Tanookie
Summary: Season one according to our favorite HBIC. Currently: "Acafellas." / Sometimes I try to ignore her nose, but the only other thing I can imagine it as is a giant zit, and that makes me want to vomit all over those hideous orthopedic shoes. /
1. Pilot

**A/N:** Title taken from Naya Rivera's overuse of the phrase in her tweets. All credit for the characters goes to FOX. There WILL be quite a bit of swearing and sexual references, so keep that in mind. Chapters will be written in a variety of styles (past, present, 3rd person, 1st, diary entries, etc.). Please review and let me know what you think! The more in-depth, the better.

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**Ep. 01 - Pilot**

Coach Sylvester doesn't believe in seniority ("Age is just a marker for how much longer you ovulate—except in the case of one Sue Sylvester. All that feminine 'natural biology' crap was holding me down, so I replaced my ovaries with aluminum spheres that numb my nerves with periodic electric shocks. I no longer feel pain."). So Quinn Fabray, despite being a sophomore, is captain of the Cheerios.

And Santana?

Well, Santana Lopez is royally pissed.

Her tryout was _far_ superior, in her own opinion, and since there's no co-captain position of the squad (Coach Sylvester thinks sharing power only leads to failure—"Look at what happened to Britain after they abolished absolutism: now they're just a bunch of tea-sucking nancies with no oral hygiene.") she's forced to follow Quinn around like she's just the bitchy, slutty best friend…kind of like Samantha from _Sex and the City_, only Santana's _way_ hotter and not too old to be having sex on car hoods.

Of course, Santana is thoroughly opposed to anyone calling her a slut. The last person who did that was the first string wide receiver Greg Linder. It was during one of the post-game parties at someone's house; Santana had just hooked up with him randomly and then, within five minutes, was grinding with Puck by the pool, her judgment and vision muddled by the Jose Cuervo she'd been shooting. When he said it, Santana made up something about him moaning Tony Felderman's name while they were making out, and he left the party in anger. But of course she wasn't done there. That next week she "accidentally" hit him in the eye with her brother's Airsoft gun.

Today, Greg Linder is the statistician for the Titans, though he often gets hit in the head with footballs due to his lack of depth perception when Finn Hudson's passes fly off course (which is all the time).

Sure, she likes having sex and does it a lot, but nobody—_nobody_—calls Santana Lopez a slut. Or skank, or whore, or ho, or even a slore (Why people would even want to use a term coined by Kim Kardashian, Santana will never know—because, seriously, the bitch looks like Megan Fox with Down's Syndrome). Plus Brittany has made out with everyone and their brother _and_ their sister and nobody mentions it to _her_…but that's probably because Brittany thinks Hades is "that place with the earthquakes" and Santana would fuck their lives twice over if anyone messed with her BFF-with-benefits.

Even though Santana is resigned to the second-in-command right now, she does an outstanding job of staying on Coach's good side, and she knows that if anything were to happen to Quinn, she would be promoted to captain in an instant. So she lords her status over people, especially those freaks like Rachel Berry, a.k.a. "Barbra Streisand 2.0." Santana isn't sure exactly _which_ ethnicity that girl—or guy—is exactly, but she's pretty sure that she's at least part Jewish, and so she wonders why she and her two gay dads wouldn't have the money to afford plastic surgery for that hideous nose.

One day after school while Coach Sylvester is having some satellite interview with some guy about some pirates in Africa or something, Quinn brings out her laptop. They're supposed to be stretching, but come on—they were on FOX Sports. They can afford a little time to laugh at Berry's latest MySpace video.

This time, it's her singing some song from yet another Broadway musical, with a hilariously arrogant description followed by a digital icon of a star:

_I'm using this song to audition for my school's glee club this week. It's "On My Own" from _Les Misérables_, one of the many songs I plan on performing when I make it to the Great White Way and begin my one-woman musical revue "Berry On Berry." Suggestions for improvement are usually not helpful (as most of you probably lack my sixteen years of training and artistic success), but appreciated all the same!_

That in itself is enough to send the Cheerios into fits of malicious giggles. Quinn is the first to comment with "If I were your parents, I would sell you back," and then Santana logs in to her account and posts something as well: "I'm going to scratch out my eyes."

…Not her ears, though, because Berry is actually pretty good. Jew nose, questionable gender, and argyle animal fetish aside, she has talent.

* * *

Apparently Mr. Schuester, the Spanish teacher, is leaving because his wife's pregnant—and, despite all her snarky comments, Santana's pretty disappointed to see him go…even though he pissed her off on her first day of high school by automatically assuming she already spoke Spanish—which wouldn't be that bad because everyone does it and Santana's grown used to it, but then he asked her for a spoken demonstration, which she failed miserably and then proceeded to look like a complete and total bitch when she snapped at him.

Racism aside, Will Schuester is probably the biggest TILF ("'Teacher I'd Like to Fuck.'" Seriously, is everyone I know stuck in another decade?") at WMHS and Santana would do him in a second if liability laws didn't suck so much.

So she is kind of disappointed that her classroom eye candy is leaving…but at least it means that that glee club "Nude Erections" won't ever be able to get off the ground and infect the hallways with disgustingly catchy song and dance numbers. Santana likes music and everything (and is a pretty damn good singer to boot), but showtunes aren't exactly her thing. The first and last Broadway show she saw was _Little Shop of Horrors_ and she was scarred for life when her older brother dropped a bunch of garden hose wrapped around a plastic hand from the roof when she was outside playing. She's been deathly afraid of large plants ever since.

One day after hearing about Schue's impending retirement, Quinn freaks out when Finn doesn't show up to Celibacy Club that afternoon. Santana rolls her eyes—he probably hit his head on some rafter and is lying unconscious, because he really is that tall and uncoordinated—but she follows Quinn all the same, desperate to get out of running the meeting in the absence of "Our Most Saintly Mother the Virginal President." (She knows that no one in that room except Quinn is actually a virgin, anyway.)

She tells Brittany to keep it under control, but she's too busy trying to figure out what the square root of four is, so Santana knows nothing will end up getting done. (The next day, when they're hastily filling in homework before class, Santana sees that Brittany had ended up drawing a rainbow for the answer.)

Santana follows Quinn up the stairs where Finn has his last class of the day, but the door is locked and there's no one there. Quinn is about call him and royally bitch his ass out (which Santana would _love_ to see because Finn Hudson is the definition of "whipped"), but down the hallway a tall, imposing figure in a tracksuit catches their eyes: Coach Sylvester. She's standing on one of the landings that look out over the auditorium, and in the silence, Santana can hear a faint chorus of voices singing "da" over and over to a very familiar tune.

"Ladies," the woman says suddenly, sensing their presence by means unknown. She doesn't even turn around, just beckons them over with her hand, the rest of her body frozen stock still in horror and anger. She kind of reminds Santana of a lioness, but with a bigger chin and more wrinkles. And, you know, less hair.

The two Cheerios walk over to her and peer over the railing; down below they see six kids in red shirts performing "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey. There's the flaming Kurt Hummel (Puck's favorite dumpster tossing target), Mercedes Jones (who's enough of an angry black woman to run Medea out of business), some Asian girl, that wheelchair kid, Manhands Berry, and…_Finn?_

Looking over at her coach, Santana can see that she's horrified and probably already plotting a way to stop an incident like this from ever happening again. Quinn is watching with her mouth hanging open, probably amazed that one, her boyfriend can _sing_, and two, that he's currently dancing around and having obvious eye sex with the transvestite. Santana notices once again that Berry is really good, although she still has to fight to hold back the bile that's rising thanks to the Disney-level optimism all these freaks are channeling.

But still, she thinks as the last notes echo on the stage and kids drop their heads, it would probably be fun if it didn't come with a guarantee of twice-a-day slushie facials. Many of which she will most definitely be dishing out tomorrow.


	2. Showmance

**Ep. 02 – Showmance**

"We have a special treat for you today. Mr. Schuester."

I don't even look up until I hear that annoying-as-hell ginger counselor-in-need-of-counseling start clapping in a way that tells everyone that either she loves glee club way more than is humanly possible or totally wants to bed Mr. Schue (who's currently blabbering on about Glee club and how they're "making a comeback"…psh, as if). I'm guessing the second one because _nobody _likes glee club and, let's face it, who wouldn't do the nasty with Señor Schuester? Sure, his hair could use work (though that might be Coach Sylvester's influence talking) but I would totally lick whipped cream out of those dimples any day.

But anyways, it's Nude Erection's performance time and I can't wait for it to be start so that it can be over. Quinn's already so pissed it's like electricity is crackling from her skin and I can practically see everyone else's hair around her standing on end. I glance over at that creepy Jewfro kid and I have a feeling there's another part of _his_ body that's standing on end, considering he's got the hots for the tranny and she's about to start singing—

Oh.

My.

God.

It takes me a second to register what the fuck is exactly happening onstage. The glee club is apparently trying really hard to be edgy, but since they're all about as badass as Care Bears it's just really tragic and disgusting. The whole experience is kinda like watching a car crash: it's probably going to make me sick but I still can't help but watch. It's so traumatic, I can only manage the briefest of thoughts.

_Blue suspenders and kneepads? Not hot, Berry. B-t-dubs, those pigtails make you look like jailbait._

_What the hell are you doing, wheelchair kid? Does your junk even work?_

_Um, no. Earth to the ethnic Britney Spears wannabes: ovary slaps are not risqué._

_Whoa, panty flash. At least now we know that either Berry's a girl or just really confused._

_Finn Hudson, you may be able to sing, but you officially fail at rapping. Hope you enjoyed that spanking you just got from McKinley's biggest butt pirate._

I realize that my mouth has been hanging open in shock and disgust and I glance at Quinn, who looks like she would claw Berry's eyes out if she wouldn't have to repent for it later. Brittany, who's sitting on my other side, leans over and whispers in my ear as Berry and Finn basically start doing it onstage.

"That looks like it hurts."

"That's cause they're doing it wrong," I scoff, my horrified eyes still glued to Berry as she mounts Finn from the front. "See, look," I explain, gesturing to the center pair. "You don't just have the guy hold your legs for you—you wrap them around his waist. And hanging on his neck like that is just asking for him to fall on top of you."

"Oh." Brittany sits back up, but leans over again a few seconds later. "Is that why _we_ don't do it like that?"

* * *

When Quinn asks me to audition for Glee with her at lunch a few days later, I almost spit out the gulp of Sue Sylvester Master Cleanse© that I'm forcing down. Her suggestion only makes the mixture harder to swallow.

"Excuse me?" I snap in disbelief. "Did all those highlights seep through your scalp and infect your brain?"

"Not unless all those trips to the tanning salon have finally fried yours," Quinn shoots back.

"I think my bangs did that for me," Brittany comments vaguely, staring off into space and twirling a strand of said bangs around her finger.

"Look," Quinn explains hastily in a low voice, "I talked to RuPaul earlier this week and she said she wasn't going to try and 'steal my man.' But you saw her during that assembly. She just as easily could've paired herself up with another guy in that song."

"Well, yeah," I reply in a tired voice, "except that one of the guys can't use his junk and the other one is about as straight as one of the polka dots on Elton John's hideous pants."

Quinn huffs and frowns, but keeps talking. "Anyways, you saw the way those two were looking at each other. I need to join that club so I can keep an eye on Finn and make sure he doesn't screw himself over…because if he stops being popular, then _my_ rep goes down too."

"So?" I say with a shrug. "Just break up with him."

Quinn looks shocked. "But I _love_ Finn!" she scoffs, sounding almost insulted at my suggestion. "And he loves me."

"Then I'm sure you don't have to worry about him and…_Rachel Berry_." I shudder as I say the name; it's like in Harry Potter when nobody will say that dude's name. Except he has no nose and Rachel Berry has way too much. "Brit and I are NOT letting you join that club. I swear, if you do, your reputation will go down harder than George Bush's approval ratings."

Quinn, fuming (probably because her crazy-ass WASP father still supports good old George W.), looks to Brittany for support. She simply shrugs and says, "I like dancing."

Then, after a moment of reflection, I realize…I like dancing too. And singing. And plus, since all three of us are so popular, it'd be like we're doing a good thing by joining this club and boosting the little freaks' reps in the process…right?

I shake my head. I'm not actually considering joining Nude Erections, am I?

Shit. Maybe I _should_ stop tanning so much.

* * *

The song we (and by "we," I mean Quinn) choose is called "I Say a Little Prayer." It sounds like it should be playing in an elevator at JC Penny, and plus since the karaoke track we use already has backup singers on it, when Brittany and I sing along we sound like black women. Of course Quinn insists on singing lead because "it was her idea" and "she's captain of the Cheerios" so "she's showing both initiative and leadership."

I personally think all that's a load of bull, but Brit and I don't argue. Brit mostly because she's way too sweet to argue with anyone, but I bite my own tongue because my time dealing with Coach Sylvester has taught me that you'll never get anywhere by pissing off people above you. Hence why Quinn and Sylvester are the only two people I can really be civil around. The rest of the cow-town spawn that crawls the halls of McKinley just isn't worth my time.

Anyways, the three of us audition and Mr. Schue tells us right then and there that we're in. I actually feel pretty good, because the minute long performance we did was way more fun than it should be. I'm walking out of the room with Brit and Quinn, thinking that maybe being able to sing and dance won't be so bad, when we spot none other than Coach Sylvester. Her furious eyes stare us down, like a viper about to strike (and, frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if she _could_ produce venom, because she told us once that she lived off snake venom for seventy-two hours when she was in the Falklands).

Sylvester doesn't say anything—she just points to her office door, and we all scurry in there, taking seats in front of her desk. I sit down slowly, carefully. I pray that the chair's aren't electrocuted.

Luckily they aren't. And after Quinn explains our situation, Coach Sylvester gives us an assignment: feed her information from Glee rehearsals so that we can take down the club. I high-five Brit triumphantly, and Quinn's eager smile tells Coach that we're all on board.

We all want different things out of this: Coach wants her full budget restored (because being parachuted onto a field from a rented helicopter is way cooler than doing some dinky song-and-dance routine to elevator music), Quinn wants her boyfriend back, Brittany just wants her friends to be happy.

And me? Well, these freaks are trying to destroy the status quo people like Quinn and I have dedicated our entire high school lives to upholding. And I can't let that happen. There's no way I'm losing my reputation to an ambiguously ethnic Barbra Streisand wannabe who owns the entire San Diego Zoo in sweater form and dresses like she could be the offspring of Betty White and Strawberry Shortcake.

Not that I'm worried, of course.


	3. Acafellas

**A/N:** A big thanks to everyone who reviewed so far. And yes, I am aware that Sue used "puttin' on the ritz" in an episode of Glee, but it's also a musical film and a fairly common slang expression, so you can understand why I can't credit everywhere the phrase is from. Anyways, enjoy the next chapter! Sorry if it's a little short, but, hey...Santana doesn't beat around the bush. ;)

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**Ep. 03 – Acafellas**

_Dear Journal,_

_I cried today._

_No joke. For the first time in two hundred and seventy-seven days (yes, that's accurate—Coach Sylvester keeps a record)…Santana Lopez cried._

_And I'm fucking pissed about it. Because it was all about losing my stupid tanning privileges. And that's it. No dead relative, no breakup. Well, there was a breakup but it was with Puck, and we break up like every other month, so it's not that big of a deal. Plus just because we're not dating doesn't mean we can't have sex (in my world, sex is __not__ dating). I mean, right after I broke up with him we went and did it in the bathroom because he got pissed at me and then we started yelling and that always turns into sex for us._

_And anger sex? It's pretty fucking hot._

_So the breakup itself wasn't that stupid, but the reason we did was. See, the other night, my mom was yelling at my dad about low credit scores. It ended pretty badly, mostly because they'd both been drinking because it was their anniversary and they're both kinda hot-headed by nature (but that doesn't mean I am. And anyone who says that will get their brains bashed in). _

_Anyways, my mom came up to my room later and apologized to me. She did give me some "advice," though, which apparently means I have to make sure my BF isn't a deadbeat and can "get off his ass once in a while to afford some high-class alcohol and not this cheap-shit booze. I mean, Goddamn, Manny, it's our fucking anniversary!"_

…_Those are her words, not mine. She gets really pissy when she's drunk. Which is why she doesn't do it all that often, which is why the liquor cabinet is basically fair game anytime I go out. _

_So even though the advice my mom gave me was kinda shitty, I looked up credit scores and found out that Puck's was terrible. He actually rated __below__ Patches, that hobo that barks at Brittany's mom! So, obviously, I had to tell Puck that it was over between us until he could get his ass in gear and find a job that didn't involve him screwing women that lived through the Depression._

_I told him that "what I need as a woman is financial security." Which is true—sure, I may be naturally hot, but it costs money to stay _this_ smoking._

_All that stuff was totally NOT why I cried, though. Like I said, it's 'cause I lost my tanning privileges. See, Coach Sylvester gives us free passes to the Lima tanning salon, and I go there like every other weekend because of course I would be the one stuck in a landlocked cow town with no beach for miles around, unless I drive up to the freaking Great Lakes, which I don't because it's freezing in Michigan and people there are so sketchy and low-income I don't want to risk getting cut. Normally I wouldn't be afraid, but Coach Sylvester only trains us in unarmed combat._

_God, but there are so many people I would love to use that skill against right now. Namely all those stupid Nude Erections kids. Especially Berry. Sometimes I try to ignore her nose, but the only other thing I can imagine it as is a giant zit, and that makes me want to vomit all over those hideous orthopedic shoes. Though that probably would be an improvement—her wardrobe belongs in either a nursery or a retirement home. Not high school where the rest of us who actually have fashion sense are forced to look at it._

_I could list so many more reasons why Berry deserves to be shoved in front of a bus…but I won't, because I'll get too mad and have to go into the basement and get out my brother's punching bag again._

_I swear, I'm really not this angry all the time. It's just that the stupid glee club is ruining everything. It's their own damn fault I can't tan for a month. _

_See, when we joined we figured we'd be doing some pretty impressive dancing—like, we're on Cheerios; we're used to that. But then we step into rehearsal and Mr. Schue's having us do these ridiculous step-ball-change-clap things that I'm pretty sure most special ed. kids could do. It was kind of insulting, really. So we convinced Berry to let him know how we felt and that he needed to hire Dakota Stanley._

_Now, Dakota Stanley's the choreographer for Vocal Adrenaline. I'm not exactly sure how the hell Quinn knows about show choir choreographers, but I looked up stuff on him after she told us about him and apparently he was in Beauty in the Beast on Broadway, so he's got to be kind of legit. _

_After we told him about Dakota Stanley, Schue got really insulted or something and basically stopped coming to rehearsal to form some *NSYNC boy band clone, except it was with creepy gay pedophiles and fat unmarried football coaches (Well, and Finn and Puck, but I just don't even know what the deal was with that)._

_So we tell Coach Sylvester about everything that's going on and she decides that this could be good—Stanley's tough and Quinn says someone in the club probably kill themselves once he comes in. _

_I personally wanted it to be Berry. She's got the most to make fun of and something tells me her Texas-sized diva ego doesn't take criticism well._

_But unfortunately it didn't end up going so well. First off, Dakota Stanley? He's like, four feet tall. He looks like he should be working at the mall as Santa's pissy helper, giving candy canes to all the crying babies. Sure, he's definitely got the angry part down, but it's more like he's trying to compensate for his height than actually whip a group of dancers into shape. And, plus…the dude wears guyliner. And that was where he lost my respect. Although, he almost chased away all the other members of Nude Erections until RuPaul had to fucking ruin it._

_And now they're all even more united than before, and Coach Sylvester called us failures and took away our tanning privileges. _

_So that's why I cried. But it was all that stupid glee club's fault anyway._

_Ugh. What-the-fuck-ever. When I come back to school and blind them with pasty white skin that rivals their own, they'll be sorry._

_- S._


End file.
